Most marketers have been in collaborative meetings during the planning phase of a marketing campaign. It can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the job — ideating with others to achieve a common goal. It’s the honeymoon phase when you have a clean slate — no finger pointing due to missed revenue goals — just smiles and collaboration.
As the media planning session is underway, the question of how you should reach your target audience will likely be one of the first questions raised. Now the fun begins, everyone pitches in with ideas of how they believe the target audience should be reached:
“We have a younger demographic, so we should put the majority of the budget on XYZ channel…” or… “we want to reach sports fans, so we should put the majority of the budget on XYZ channel.”
Unlike the post-launch meetings, where reality has settled and stress has intensified, most semi-logical ideas in the planning phase are met with, “it’s worth a test,” from a collaborative partner.
This audience-focused approach is where things can go terribly wrong for media planners and here is why:
Reaching your audience is often only a micro-goal that leads to your end goal.
Let’s say you had the end goal of driving sales to your business and there were 2 channel options:
Channel A: Contains 1,000,000 people in your target audience and has a historical sales conversion rate of 1%.
Channel B: Contains 500,000 people in your target audience and has a historical sales conversion rate of 3%.
Which channel should you prioritize?
A common approach would be to prioritize channel A, since it has more people in your target audience. However, prioritizing channel B would ultimately drive more sales due to its strong conversion rate. Albeit an over-simplified example, allocating your budget based on the index of your audience alone may not yield the best results.
Each channel has unique strengths and weaknesses, and the best media plans often balance multiple factors in the decisioning process.
Some channels may have a high index with your audience but gaping weaknesses in the other aspects pivotal for achieving your end goal.
Many modern marketing channels index a fair amount of people in your target audience, even if the channel is not known for your exact demographic. Audience scale limitations are generally not the biggest obstacle for the average marketing budget.
When a media plan fails to meet objectives, it may have nothing to do with the audience reached, but a variety of other overlooked factors.
When choosing your channels for a media plan, ensure the reasoning includes the audience with several “and statements” attached.
Thought-starter questions to ask while media planning:
1. What are the historical benchmarks for this channel per KPI?
2. What is a consumer’s intent or state of mind when they use this channel?
3. How strong is the viewability and ad recall on this channel?
4. Will the consumer’s usage of this channel be significant enough for an effective frequency?
5. Does the optimization algorithm on this channel have a track record of success for my desired KPIs?
6. Is this a full-funnel marketing channel, or only one touchpoint in the consumer’s journey?
7. What is the qualitative advantage (impact) of this channel that cannot be measured with numbers?
Practical solutions for balanced media planning:
1. Implement processes that quickly allow you to rank mediums based on a variety of quantitative and qualitative factors.
2. Use benchmarks for everything possible (1st-party and 3rd-party).
3. Automate. automate. automate. While the qualitative aspects of media planning may require a human touch, manual processes for the quantitative aspects may lead to overlooked opportunity. Use technology to automate your decisioning in media planning where possible.
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